Heart Tracks - Heartbeats

"Enoch walked with God...." Genesis 5:24...."How would the world change if we all became masters in the art of hearing heartbeats? God's and His people......When we become all ear, this changes the sound of the world." Ann Voskamp

Listening to the heartbeat of another requires intense concentration, even when using the means of a stethoscope. Other sounds have to be blocked out, and attention has to be focused on what you're hearing. Maybe this is the reason so few of us know and recognize the heartbeat of the Father, and even more, the heartbeats of those He loves. The noise of this world, coupled with the self-centered demands of our own hearts blot out what the beat of His heart is saying. And if we can't hear His heart, we certainly will miss what is coming from the hearts of others.

I've never been in the military, but I've always been fascinated by watching soldiers marching in tandem. It looks effortless, but it's not. It's the result of intense training that starts with hearing and being in tune with the leading of the drillmaster, and then, being in harmony with everyone else in the unit. It's a joy to watch a body of soldiers move as one, but it never happens naturally. It only happens as the result of awareness of another, and others, and a major reduction in focus on oneself. I must decrease so that He, they might increase.

Oswald Chambers wrote about "getting into the stride of God." We all talk about walking with God, but few of us walk in stride with Him. We prefer to think in terms of "following Him," but it's a kind of "convenient for us" kind of following. At a distance....a comfortable distance. We like to keep Him in view....but too often, the view of Him is as a distant speck on the horizon. We follow Jesus, but at our pace, not His. Can we really call this walking with Him at all? If we can barely keep Him in sight, how can we ever know anything of His heart? And if we can't hear and know His heart, we surely won't hear and know the hearts of others...and we'll be deluded as to knowing our own. This is why so many stumble through life, clueless as to His heart and leading, and oblivious to what's going on in the hearts and lives of others. I guess this is why, from the perspective of heaven, the Body of Christ most often looks like a crowd of raw recruits who have absolutely no idea as to what it is to move in step with the leading of the Father. We bump into each other, trip over each other, go in different directions from each other. But when we become all ear, as Voskamp writes, it not only changes the sound of the world, it changes how it looks to us as well. And it changes how we look and sound to each other.

We emphasize evangelism, and seek to gather in converts to Christ. Do we go about this in conjunction with His heart and leading? Do we listen for what His heart is saying in our encounters with the people we come into contact with each day? Can we hear what their hearts say in their words and behaviors? Do we see them just as people to be won to Him, or hearts and lives to be heard by Him? The first can be pretty impersonal. The latter requires not only the investment of our time, but ourselves. And our main focus is not "closing the deal," but hearing the heart, and speaking into that heart with His. We can do it because we hear His heart, their heart, while our heart is a conduit between them both.

I have so often been completely out of step with Him. Too often only aware of the demands and desires of my own heart, and not His, and for sure not another's. Could that be so of you as well? I want to be as Enoch, who walked with God, in His stride, with His heart. The beat of His speaks to us.....Can we hear it?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Living Illustrations

"Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery, in departing from the Lord." Hosea 1:2...."What would you give up for the sake of God's people? If He called you to sacrifice your life - or harder yet, to sacrifice your dreams - would you be able to?.....We're to embrace the joy and pain of being living illustrations of His Kingdom - whatever it costs." Chris Tiegreen

It's so easy to read the "stories" of people in the Bible and be completely removed from what they lived through in their devotion to Him. Certainly the life of Hosea is case in point. Tiegreen says that in whatever dreams one may have as concerns their marriage, becoming the mate of a prostitute would not be among them. No man or woman would dream of joining with a persistently unfaithful wife or husband, yet this is exactly what the Father directed Hosea to do. More, Hosea loved this wife, which made God's way here even more difficult to understand. He led Hosea into a heartbreaking union, fully knowing the cost it would bring to this prophet, a man He deeply loved. How could He do that? How could He ask such of him? He could because He had a much deeper purpose in mind, one that was of greater import than the pain the unfolding of His purpose would bring to Hosea. Through Hosea's sacrificial obedience, the Father would show forth the depth of His love for a rebellious, totally faithless people. John Piper, commenting on this writes, "He knows that his wife is a harlot. That's the meaning of mercy: God is wooing a wife of harlotry." Through the sacrifice of Hosea's obedience and love for his faithless wife, God shows His love and mercy, and His unending grace that woos the hearts of those who have no love for Him. Hosea was willing to be that living illustration of His mercy, grace, and love, and at agonizing personal cost. How willing are we? To what degree of sacrifice will we go?

I know something of broken dreams and surrendered hopes. Though I am no hero of the faith, I think I've experienced something of what Tiegreen asks. I've never gone into any real detail concerning the destruction of my marriage. The overwhelming factor in that was my devotion to Him and the ministry He'd called me to, and the deep conflict that trying to find balance between it and my marriage brought. It was a terrible struggle, to the point that I found myself making compromises that violated deep convictions I held. To continue in this would ultimately, I knew, lead me away from His heart. I couldn't do that. I couldn't abandon Him on any level, so in the end, I was myself abandoned, but not by Him. Not ever. The consequences were terrible, but if faced with that same choice today, I would not choose differently. I could not choose against Him. In the end, only He knows what kind of "illustration" I've been, and for sure it pales in comparison to that of so many others. But I hope it is one of faithfulness. I hope it's an illustration that continues to speak, unseen and unheard but by a few, but certainly by Him.

I think for all of us, to truly live for Him will bring us each to such a place as Hosea. A place where He asks us to lay down our dreams, our hopes, to allow them to lie broken at our feet. All of it in order to show forth, to be living illustrations of some, and together, all of the aspects of His character. When it comes time for us to do so, can we? Will we? How far in that will we go? How great a cost are we willing to pay.....in order to show both His people and the world who this Father and Lord we say we love, is?

The Father seeks to paint a picture of Himself through His people. Too often I've been a poor caricature of Him. Yet still He woos me, and when, in surrender, I say yes to His call and the sacrifice that surely goes with it, I'm able to be His illustration to an unbelieving world. A flawed one for sure, but with each yes to Him, regardless the cost, I, you, we, can be a truer, better, portrait of who He is. He gives these portraits of Himself to the world through you and me. May the strokes of His brush do Him justice....even when those strokes might break the heart of the very ones He loves.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Resurrection Road

6 Then Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again. So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab to return to her homeland. 7 With her two daughters-in-law she set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah. Ruth 1:6-7...."When you don't know where to begin and you're at the end of yourself, you get to be where all of God begins.....Sometimes, some things need to break all apart so that better things can be built......The way to feel the relief of a resurrection is to enter into the suffering of the Crucified." Ann Voskamp

"You've reached the end of the road." Most often, that's a statement of defeat and despair. Most often it's seen as final. There's no place to go from here. You can't go back, and you see no way forward. You've reached the end...of everything. This was how Naomi, the mother-in-law of Ruth saw it. Her husband was dead. So were her sons. For a woman of that day, the natural expectation would be a fast approaching death. Alone, forgotten, without hope. She saw it as the end of the road. Her daughter-in-law Ruth, and most importantly, her God, saw it differently. They had reached the end of their road of living in Moab, a place they were never to have been in to begin with. Now came the opportunity for the Father to reveal a new road, His road. The road that would lead them back to Judah, Naomi's home, and the land that would become Ruth's as well. At the end of every road that we've chosen to walk, sometimes in rebellion, other times in deception, most times in foolishness, lies a road to be revealed. The road that will lead us home. Home to our true place in Him. To get there though, we do have to reach an end. That's the end of ourselves. Of our trust in ourselves, and others, and all that is not Him in this life. The end of walking roads that lead nowhere but to loss, and if kept to, the loss of our very soul. His road will always lead to the cross, and our flesh will do anything to avoid it. For on that road it must die. It's His Resurrection Road, the Road Of Life. To walk that road means that fleshly self reliance must die, and that death is painful. But it's death, by way of the cross, is the open door to our way home.

Life is really a series of "end of the roads." None are easy, and all are scary. They always entail loss. There is always upheaval. Everything in our world gets shaken, and where we once thought we had many roads to choose from, there are now none. None that we can see. It's here where we are challenged to believe that there is one before us that is unseen. It's the road that leads us home, to Him. Natural eyes, depending on logic, reason, circumstances, and intellect, will never see it. It can only be discerned by spiritual eyes, that refuse to believe the whispered lies of the enemy, and the conditions he works through, and trusts in what the Father says is there. And what is there is Himself. And a road not often taken, because it can only be seen through the eyes of surrender.

I've reached a number of "end of the roads" in my life. Places where my future appeared to be erased. The end of the road of my life without Him, where in His mercy and grace, He opened my eyes to see the road I never knew was there. The road that brought me to Him. The end of the road of my marriage and seeming end of ministry. A road that many in the church said I would find no way off of. He was there as well. And the road that led nowhere, now led to a place I couldn't see, but His heart told me was before me. There have been more. All dark. All filled with the unknown. All containing one great question; would I dare to believe that He was there? Would I believe that what seemed to be the end, was instead the beginning. The beginning of a new road and journey with Him. A journey that would surely contain another end of the road somewhere, but when it was reached, would lead to another open road with Him. The road that always leads me home.

If you're not yet at the end of the road, you will be. What will you do there? Try to dig out a new one? You can't. All the rubble around it will eventually fall in upon you. Just give up and be buried there? If you're looking to yourself or another, that's sure to be your eventual end. Or, will you allow Him to open your eyes to see the "road less traveled." The road that leads you Home. To Him. To Life. To a new beginning. Take it from a fellow traveler. It's there. He's there. Take that road, the Resurrection Road. All the way home.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Missing Parts

I was walking in our local mall today, as I'm wont to do most every day, and as I also most always do, seeing the people I walked by. Most times, I try to look at their faces, and in doing, pray His blessing upon them, especially the blessing of His Life and Presence. Today, in my "journey," I passed a lady, most likely in her late 30's. As I looked at her, I saw that she had lost her left leg below the knee, and was using a specially constructed metal one. I also saw that it appeared that some disfigurement may have occurred to the right side of her face, mainly around her eye. Our eyes met, and though I don't know exactly what she may have been thinking, I wondered if she thought I was feeling pity for her, for her missing leg and damaged eye. What I was feeling was His heart, and I whispered this prayer; "Father, if this lady today is somehow feeling that her missing leg or damaged eye somehow makes her less complete, less whole, less of anything, please Father, open her mind and heart to know that true wholeness, the only real wholeness, is found in you alone."

In 30 plus years of ministry, the one common search I have seen in lives both outside of and within the church, is for something or someone to make them complete, to make them whole. This completeness is sought in success, goods, homes, and most of all, relationships and people. We have a hunger to feel this completeness, and invest all of our lives into finding it....and always failing. There is something, Someone always missing. The world doesn't know who that Someone is, but we in the church profess that we do, though our lives too often say that we don't. That we don't know He is the One at all. We pursue wholeness with the same blind ambition that the world does, and it shows forth from the pulpit to the pew. Our lips may say "Amen" to Acts 17:28, but our hearts say something totally opposite.

Someone said that we need to stop saying that "God is enough." We need to speak and live out the witness that in every place and in all things, He is more than enough. He gives of Himself lavishly, but we receive Him, if we receive Him at all, in very small increments. And the evidence for this is everywhere. We don't know contentment, and so we search every means of finding it. In position, possessions, or people. The fact that true contentment and peace can never be found in these eludes us...so we keep searching....and missing Him in all of it.

I think again of that good woman in the mall. They say that for a very long time after the loss of all or some part of a limb, the person can still "feel" as if it is still there. We see this in relationships too, and nowhere more than in the case of divorce. Divorce is a spiritual ripping apart of one "body" in Him. The healing process for that is not one of months, or even a year or two. Inserting an artificial limb doesn't "feel" like the real one, and neither will an artificial relationship. Unless we allow Him to not only heal the terrible wound of it. And He heals by filling it with Himself. In seeking substitutes, we invite ourselves to experience cycles of continued broken relationship, or at best, completely unfulfilling ones. Most of us have heard this. Most of us say it's true. Most of us never live it out. We seek wholeness in things and people that can never supply it. The result is a trail of destruction. In our lives, and the lives of those we touch.

We live in a world that is passing away. Loss will always be a part of it. Loss of precious loved ones through death. Loss through abandonment. Loss of a youth and vitality we thought would never end. The Father understands the pain and heartache of every loss. We need to understand that in Him alone do we find the healing and wholeness our hearts longs for.

I titled this "Missing Parts," but it's not about the parts we are missing. It's about the Wholeness in Him that we've likely never had. My prayer for you, for me, for us all, is that we too will come to know that only in Him are we made whole. And that until we know such wholeness, we'll accept no artificial substitutes. Right now, in some part of your life, the enemy whispers that you lack, and therefore, you're not complete. Christ whispers an invitation to come to Him....and be whole, be complete, be healed. Be His.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Broken Offerings

41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.” Mark 12:41-44

I know I've used this story once before, but I came across it again in my prayer journal the other day, and again, it melted my heart....James Robison told of the time, after preaching in one of his crusades, that a father wheeled his daughter, paralyzed from the neck down, up to him. In a frail voice, she asked him to lean in close to her. She whispered, "I want to give everything I am to Him. Do you think He can use someone like me?" Robison said her question so moved and convicted him that he dropped to his knees. In the midst of this girl's broken offering, he was broken. 

I read somewhere that here in the west, in the midst of our "It's all about me," culture, we in the church, saturated in that culture, are only willing to give to the point of getting some relief for our guilty conscience. We give with reservations. Not just from our financial and material resources, but from the resource of ourselves as well. We give out of our wealth, calculating just how much is enough. Enough of our goods, our time, ourselves. We can give a lot, but we rarely, if ever are willing to give our all. Not just all we have, but all we are. Jesus said we are not our own, but our lives are usually a great contradiction to that. We live as if we very much belong to ourselves.

The paralyzed girl was the most broken of broken offerings. To the eyes of flesh, she could offer only her broken body. A body dependent on another to even move about. Her all did not amount to much of anything as the world measures things. Yet her giving of herself was riches beyond measure to the heart of the Father. In her offering, Robison encountered the face and heart of God. He was broken before her brokenness. Are we? How can any of us hold back from Him any part of ourselves in the face of such giving? Yet we do, don't we? We don't just hold back "stuff" from Him. We hold back our own brokenness as well. Yet it is our own brokenness, our broken offerings, that I believe move the heart of the Father beyond all else. 

Jesus wasn't moved by the surplus offerings of the rich, which likely amounted to a very considerable sum. Yet He was moved by the few cents of the widow. She held nothing back. Along with the few cents, she gave all of herself. And all of our herself, no matter what her earthly condition, was of more value to Him that all the riches of the world. The broken offering of a broken body in a wheelchair, means more to Him than all the partial offerings of all the multi-talented and gifted people in the world, and especially in the church. She asked if He could use her, and He did, He has, through this story alone. Broken offerings in His hands always bring wholeness. And most of all, in them, He displays His glory.

We are all of us broken. Few of us are offerings. Broken offerings to a whole and holy God. Your surplus is of no interest to Him. Your brokenness is. Dare you offer it? In our heart, we all know we're broken. We go to many places and people to try and deal with it. Things, people, relationships. None of these can fix our brokenness. It just keeps showing through. The world throws what's broken away. The Father takes them to His heart....and makes them whole. We're all broken. Will we be a broken offering to Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Endorsing Jesus

"I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." 2 Timothy 1:12...."The housewife, who, when told to endorse a check wrote, 'I heartily endorse this check,' was not unlike some of us in spiritual matters. We endorse the Bible as God's Word and Jesus as God's Son, but we do not actually 'sign our name,' we do not make it personal. We believe, but we do not commit all we are and have to it." ....
Vance Havner

In the jaded world of politics, there may be no weaker statement than the endorsement of a particular public figure for a candidate for office. These endorsements can be very half-hearted, and easily withdrawn. The words may be spoken, but the actions of the speaker say something else entirely. They endorse with the giving of their words, not with the giving of themselves. As concerns Jesus Christ, how like them are we? Like the housewife in Havner's illustration are we endorsing Him with our words, but keeping ourselves back? Have we "signed our name" to Him in response to His signing His name to us in His blood?

Something I've found in my journey with Him is that so much of what I believed was my faith in Him, in His Word, His promises, His Presence, was much more endorsement that it was total commitment. 2 Timothy 1:12 would be a prime example. It's one of the earliest promises that I would lay claim to. I believed it, endorsed it, but it was not until my life came to a place where every other hope was lost that I would sign my name to it, commit all I was and had to it. I think most of us are of like experience. The great problem for us is that too many never get past this place. We never allow ourselves to be in a situation where Christ, His Word, His Truth, are all we have. We always seem to excel at having back-up plans, stashed resources, or some flesh engineered means of changing our situation, transforming our circumstances. We endorse Christ as our only hope, but we sign our names to other people or means as our real source of hope. Like the housewife, we heartily endorse Him in public, but in private, we easily sign our names away to another. And we're very skilled at deluding ourselves as to the truth of all that.

Of all men who ever lived, perhaps none knew Christ more intimately than Paul. When Christ first called him to Himself, it was with the truth that with that call would come unimaginable suffering. In that suffering, Paul learned to put his name upon the One who promised to make him "more than a conqueror" in all of it. He knew His Lord. He said that he bore upon his body, "the brand-marks of Christ." These marks were where Christ had signed His name upon Paul's heart and soul. Paul had a holy confidence so deep that he would willingly sign his name, his life, upon Christ and His Word. The powerful witness of Paul wasn't that he was a living endorsement of Him, but a living vessel of His presence in and through Him. Christ had written His signature upon Paul's life, and Paul, in holy trust, had written his name upon his Savior. Have we?

2 Timothy 1:12 is Paul's signature upon the faithfulness of Christ. It was binding for his life here, and into eternity. Upon what and who have we placed our signature? Do we give empty words of endorsement while we look to someone or something else? Do we know? Do we believe? Can we put our names on that? Does He have your endorsement, or does He have you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Twice Ruined

"I am ruined! I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." Isaiah 6:5...."The dark side of glory is that it shows us how unclean we are....But the bright side of glory is that God always offers us a recovery from our woeful lament." Chris Tiegreen

I think the majority who have read or heard the above Scripture understand the cry that was coming from both Isaiah's heart and voice. In the Presence of a perfect, Holy God, his fallen, sinful and imperfect heart was confronted with both the reality of who God is, and the reality of who he was without Him. He was ruined. Ruined as concerns any further ability to deny his real spiritual state. Ruined as to any thinking he had that he could "work" his way into God's favor or acceptance. His need was total. His inability to provide for that need was as well. To come face to face with Him in His glory is to have just about everything we believe about ourselves and Him to be proven wrong. All the lies we've believed and hidden in, all the counterfeit "gods" we've constructed and worshiped. Everything that is counter to Him, has been ruined. We are ruined, undone, as another translation reads. That's the dark side of His glory for us. The bright side of His glory is that He offers us, in Jesus Christ, a way to be remade. Born anew. A new creation in Christ. And it all begins with the realization that we are ruined. Have you ever really come to that realization? Or do you still hide in lies, half-truths, preconceptions and misconceptions about you, about Him? The first step to real wholeness and life in Him is our ruination. Has that ruination ever happened in you?

As I read this Scripture, another kind of ruin came to my mind. It comes from that bright side of His glory that Tiegreen writes about. Out of the ruins of seeing who He is and who we are, and in the making of the new life He offers us in Christ, comes this reality. We are now ruined for all but Him. Oswald Chambers said that "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die." That is, die to all that is not Christ. Die to everything that seeks to control, enslave, or woo our hearts away from Him. Die to every competing "idol" that seeks to have His place in our hearts. John Wesley said that anything that reduces our fervent love for Him, or lessens our hearts focus on Him, "that thing for you is sin." No one can behold Him and stay the same. We will either be ruined for the world, and reject every hold it has on us, or, we'll be ruined for Him, fleeing from His Presence, rejecting Him and the wholeness of life He offers us. One way or another, we'll be ruined. Have you been ruined? If so, has it been in One Way......or another?

We live in the day of what some have called "Easy believism." We issue a general call to a generic Christ. Our portrait of the Father can be pretty fuzzy. We emphasize His love and goodness, but His holiness gets lost in that. We invite people to a God who doesn't much resemble the One seen by Isaiah. But only by beholding Him as He really is, are we changed.

I close with this; Vance Havner said, "We cannot have a heavenly fellowship if we allow a hindering fellowship.....We must deal with our carnalities if we desire the spiritualities." We must be twice ruined. Ruined by Him, and then ruined for all else but Him. Many are called, few are chosen. To which group do you and I belong?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - White Knuckle Faith

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

In response to one of my recent "Heart Thoughts," a good friend, who with her husband, serve a fellowship in Colorado, wrote me and said that in the midst of an ever darker culture, and a weakened church, they were holding on in "white knuckled faith" for the church. I thought about that phrase. It would seem it is perhaps the most appropriate description of the kind of faith, belief in Him, that must be exercised in these days we live in.

It might be that some read my writings and think I have little hope for the Body of Christ, that all is dark, hope is dim, and all we can do is wait for the end, when Jesus comes back. Nothing could be further from the truth. Surely there are consequences for sin. Surely too, the surrounding culture has had more impact upon the church than the church has had on it. In many ways, the church more resembles a well-oiled corporate organization than it does a living organism grounded in His Spirit and Life. I believe in a just God who is also Judge. I believe too that in every case, He is more anxious to save, redeem, renew, and awaken than He ever will be to judge. Mercy triumphs over judgement, and always will.....until that mercy is continually rejected to the point where all that will be left is judgement. I do not believe such a place has yet been reached, and like my friends, I hold on in "white knuckle faith" that the redeeming, renewing, awakening God will, through His Holy Spirit, explode unto His church. I believe too that, starting with His servants in the pulpit, down through the leadership of His church, and unto all those who gather in His name, His call to us is to hold on to Him with expectation and obedience, in white knuckle faith.

I believe this to be so not only in matters as concerns the church, but in every matter in the life of a believer. Jesus would often make a declaration to His listener and follow it with the question, "Do you believe this?" In these days, the Truth of what He has spoken, what the Father has spoken, throughout all of His Word, is being tested and challenged like never before. Our rational, logical culture has left little place for the miraculous and supernatural, and especially for what is His absolute Truth. If our minds can't grasp it, explain it, understand it, we reject it. So, into every area of life will come that which He has spoken, and His question, "Do you believe this?" More deeply each time, believing Him will require of us to exercise "white knuckle faith." In matters of health, finance, relationships, morality, and most importantly, spiritual life in Him, we will need to hold on in that kind of faith. To have a hope like Abraham's, "Who against all hope, in hope, believed." White knuckle faith is nothing new for the people of God. Yet is it new to you? Is it known to you? Have you, have I, the will to exercise it, even when, like Abraham, you see no visible reason to do so?

Again, this is what He is calling us to. A faith that will not let Him go, as He gives to us His love that will not let us go. Yes, there will be consequences, terrible ones, for those who will not believe, but for those who will not let go, will not give up, the reward at the end of it all will, as the old hymn sings, "be worth it all." Wherever you are right now, in ministry, in life, hold on. With white knuckle faith. The One you hold to, holds you.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Potluck Koinonia

"All the believers were of one heart and mind, and they felt that what they owned was not their own; they shared everything they had. And the apostles gave powerful witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus..." Acts 4:32-33
....Koinonia...Christian fellowship or communion with God, or, more commonly, with fellow Christians....."Koinonia is more than a cup of coffee and small talk; it is the fellowship of the broken sharing brokenness." Ann Voskamp

In the church, we talk a great deal about "having fellowship with one another." There is a great emphasis on being "a community." How do we really define that? Is it closer to being just "coffee and small talk," or is it really "the fellowship of the broken sharing brokenness?" What does "community" look like in your church? What does it look like in you?

I heard Francis Chan speaking recently about this. He referenced his days of pastoring a very "successful" megachurch. Thousands came each week. They listened to him preach, sitting in darkened sanctuaries, then they walked out into the daylight, got in their cars, and went home. To him, this didn't seem at all what church was to be, is to be. Larry Crabb wrote a wonderful book several years ago titled, "Real Church: Does It Exist? Can We Find It?" In it he shared his frustration, and the frustration of many others with how the modern church of the west seemed completely removed from its roots in the first century. For pastors in particular, two characteristics seemed to be in the forefront; burnout and boredom. Even in those who pastored what appeared to be large, successful "fellowships." There was a void in all of it. A void that only the experience of true Koinonia could fill. Koinonia that has as it's center, Christ the King. Chan left his megachurch in order to plant a fellowship that didn't have growing bigger for Him, but growing deeper in Him as it's focus. And in the process, growing closer to Him, and to one another in the journey. Chan, and those who are joining with Him in his house church movement, appear to be finding what Crabb labels the "real church." Are you and I? If we are to, it will mean the tearing down of all the walls we've constructed between each other. It will mean a willingness to be broken, transparent, vulnerable, and yes, available. To Him, and especially to each other. That means personal cost. A "real church" has to be composed of those willing to pay such a price. A price that will not allow them, both pastor and people, to just preach and listen to a sermon, then disconnect, if there was even a connection to begin with, casually walk out the door and go home.

In all the years that I've been "going to church" almost all the "fellowship" I've experienced is of the "coffee and small talk" type that Voskamp mentions. Potlucks, small groups, you name it, most of it never goes beyond the surface. It's seen even in the gathering of pastors, with emphasis on business and the program. Too often we come hungry for more, and leave the same way. It's not often that we are the broken sharing our brokenness. Small talk, broad discussion, a bit of general prayer, and away we go. There are some who've sought to lead the way to that "more", but they are not many. If this is the case for the pastors, what must be the state of the people?

I remember years ago a brother pastor sharing that if he was going through a deep valley, he could share that with his people for a week, maybe two, but he had better have gotten beyond it after that. For all of us, that seems to be about the extent of our wanting "to be real." I recognize that there are many who want to stay in their grief, refusing to let it go. I know too that there are those who seek the attention of others and don't want to lose it. Yet too much of the church just doesn't want to be inconvenienced by having to tend to the wounds and brokenness of others past what they consider a reasonable time. They want them to move on. Could it be because the brokenness of our brother reminds too much of the brokenness of ourselves? So the walls get higher, the hearts get harder.

This has been too long, I know, and there's so much more to say, but I long for, and I think He longs for us to have, something much greater than "potluck koinonia." Real people, coming together as the real church, being one together in and with a real God. We want to emulate the first century church in its explosive growth, but we can't because we know little to nothing of its Holy Spirit centered love of the Father and one another power. Until we do, we'll keep gathering to listen as one talks, a few sing, and then we go home in our cars.....unless of course there's a potluck fellowship after church.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Running For Cover

"God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." I John 1:5..."If He really does His work in you and in me, He will make us to be people who can bear to be 'looked into' without any fear, without any drawing of the blinds. Our lives and our motives will bear looking into." T. Austin-Sparks

After Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit in the Garden, and sin entered into them, and through them, into us, their first response to God was to try and hide from Him. Sin, and it's power over them brought between they and the Father a barrier that hadn't existed before. What had been natural, intimate fellowship with Him, was now alien to them. Their first thought was to hide from His Presence, even as His Presence sought them. Nothing has changed for we who are their human heirs in the eons that have passed since. The presence of sin in our lives will never be able to bear the Light of His Presence. Our first reaction will always be to run from it, to run from Him....even as He seeks us in order to bring us freedom.

When I was a boy, like many children, I was afraid of the dark. I remember my father once saying to me that there was nothing there in the dark that wasn't also there in the light. In the human sense he was right. Not so in the spiritual. In the spiritual realm there are endless "things" that thrive in the darkness. Things that cannot and will not bear the Light of His Presence.

I'm reminded of another boyhood memory. My aunt and uncle lived in an old farmhouse, and my brothers and I visited every summer. Their basement was a dark, dirt floor affair, and it harbored a number of mice, and who knows what else. I avoided it, but I do remember going down once, turning the light on at the top of the stairs. As I did so, I could hear the mice scurrying for cover. I don't think I went past that first step, but the memory is a great illustration for how our sins and spiritual lack run for cover when the Light of His Life draws near. And it's not those things that everyone can see. It's the inner ones that only He, and we, are aware of, and sometimes, not even we. Inner things like hurtful attitudes, bitterness, unforgiveness, arrogance, lust, hatred, bigotry. These things and so many more can't bear the Light of the Lord. We will run from that Light, hide from it. We'll do this even though we know somehow that the One who searches for us, calls to us, means to bring healing, deliverance, wholeness with His Light and Presence. As He did with Adam and Eve, He calls out, "Where are you?" He knows where we are. It's His desire that we do as well.

The beauty of all this is that the Father, in Christ, never ceases to come searching. He searches for individuals, families, people groups, nations, and yes, His Church. The tragedy is found in that most will never come out of hiding. We fear the Light. We prefer the darkness. It gives cover for our wrongdoing, wrong thinking, and wrong living. Yet for some, His Light, and His love will break through the darkness. And the darkness, which had seemed so natural to us, becomes alien to us instead. We embrace Him, His Light, His Love, and His Life. That which has been held back from Him is given fully to Him. All that we'd tried so hard to keep hidden from Him is yielded to Him. We become those who, as Sparks writes, can "bear to be looked into." Fully looked into.

There is also another kind of hiding we do. We hide in our woundedness and brokenness. We hide in our fears and our loneliness. To these and all others, He comes with His seeking, searching grace. In His grace He calls us out of our self-made covering, into the covering He offers us in Jesus Christ. Grace greater than all our sin, all our need, all our brokenness. In whatever hiding place you may be in, do you hear His call? Does your marriage, your relationships. Your family, your job, your ministry....your church? His Light shines towards us. Do we keep running for cover, or do we come to His covering? The Light has come. Have we come to the Light?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Post

"When He had received the drink, Jesus said, 'It is finished.' With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit." John 19:30..."Your value is not defined by your achievements. Your value is defined by the One who said, 'It is finished,' and achieved it all. You don't have to be awesome and do everything; you simply have to believe that the One who is truly awesome loves you through everything......You're more than your hands do. You're more than your hands have. You're more than how other hands measure you. You are written on God's hands: Safe....Held....His....Beloved." Ann Voskamp

I'm now in both the twilight of my life and ministry. It's natural for me, for anyone, to look back upon life at this point and ask, "What has it all amounted to?" With that question, there will be two voices that answer. One will be the voice of the enemy of our soul. He will belittle, mock, accuse, categorize. He's consistent in that, and he never eases up on his attack. In fact, I think he's at his most relentless at this stage of a believers life. Have we lived a life that really mattered, that made a difference? If we answer yes, he'll demand proof. As His people, co-laborers, priests and ministers, moving in the realm of the eternal, immediate "proof" can be hard to come up with. Most of us will never have a "trophy case" filled with the praises of men. If that's what we seek, and in truth, some part of us always does, we'll not only experience deep frustration and a sense of failure at the end of it all, but all along the way to getting there. I know. Too often that's been me. That's why Voskamp's words speak so strongly to me. He calls us to come out of the world's perspective and enter into His. He calls us to a far higher measure than what the world can ever come up with. At the end of it is the crown He gives, but that crown comes by way of pain, tears, our blood, and His cross. I have my doubts as to whether the Father even has a "trophy case," but if He does, those are what it will contain.

I recently preached on Ezekiel 22:30, where the Father said that He searched Israel for a man who would "rebuild the walls of righteousness" and who would "stand in the gap" for His people Israel, His church, and for the nation. He said that He had found none. That Scripture has been speaking to me on deep levels, and giving me more of His perspective.
This is what the Father seeks from us. As father's and mother's, husband's and wives, neighbors, church members, citizens. In a culture that has been breached by the growing cancer of sin and darkness, will we be ones who step forward, and stand in the gap where it is happening? Will we take up our post, wherever that is, in whatever role He gives us, and stand in it for Him? For as long as He calls us to? Which for all of us is our lifetime. Will we be, as Leonard Ravenhill said, those who stand "between a Living God and a dying people?" Will we do so even if the only one who's aware of us being there is Him? This is likely the hardest part of the standing. Pastors in particular experience great highs when things at their post are going well. Yet everything crashes when they're not. That's because we live in a different perspective than His. We're at the mercy of the changing tides. To stand in the gap through both high and low tide requires a heart filled with His Life and Spirit, dependent not on what's happening around us, but on His grace that keeps us faithful...and standing.

As I said, this is the twilight of it all for me. I intend, by His grace, to stand my post, fill the gap where I am right now, and wherever I may yet be. Most likely unseen and unnoticed. But as Voskamp says, held in His hands. Hands that write upon my heart, Safe, Held, His, Beloved. Your post, in the gap, in whatever role that may be, will surely be a lonely one. As parent, mate, neighbor, minister, part of His Body. Those same hands hold you, and they write those same words upon your heart. Is that enough for you to keep standing....in the gap....at your post....with and for Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Are We?

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith." 2 Timothy 4:7

Evangelist Nick Vujicic used the above Scripture as the dedication to his late father in his newest book. As I thought about this Scripture some things came to my mind, Spirit led I believe, and isn't that to be the result of all Scripture that we read and hear? Paul wrote these words to Timothy as he came to the end of his earthly life and ministry. He wrote them as he looked back upon the long road of both. They are apt words for such a time, and we need to know that not only must we measure the summation of our lives by them, but that the Father will as well. Yet this is not a question that should wait only till the end of our journey here. It's a question that must be asked of us right now; are we fighting the good fight? Are we running the race the Father has set before us? Are we keeping, right now, the faith?

We fight so many fights. Most of them are the wrong ones, and almost always for the wrong reasons. Our motivations are pride, greed, competition, a lust to succeed. If we're not fighting other people, than we're usually fighting ourselves. Yet I think the only "good fight" is that which, in the face of all the opposition of hell, lifts up the name of Jesus wherever we are, in the midst of whatever circumstances exist. This is how Paul lived. Stoned by an angry mob and left for dead outside the city he ministered to, he rose up and went back into that very city. He didn't go back to fight those who fought against him, but to give glory to the One who raised him up. That is our fight each day, and each day the enemy of our souls will seek to silence us. We fight the good fight by spreading the seed of His Truth and Life, trusting that there will be a harvest of that seed. Sometimes we get to reap the harvest, oftentimes, it's others. Who does what isn't our fight. Planting the seed is. We all fight. Is any part of it found in the good fight Paul writes of?

We all realize we're in some kind of race. Which kind is ours? Are we running the race with our eye on the "prize" of self fulfillment, comfort, accumulation, success? Even ministry success? Are we running the race that He has set before us, or the one we've picked out for ourselves? Back in the 1960's, I remember a movie titled, "The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner." Running the race He sets before us may be the loneliest of all. Most will not see us, or know the struggles we endure. Yet He does, and in the course, He sustains us. We may seem to be going nowhere, making no progress, coming to no finish line, yet He calls us on, draws us nearer to Him, and He knows the way we take. He means to bring us home. He means for us to win that race. It's the central part of fighting the good fight. How much of our lives are actually running the race He's set before us, and not the more glamorous one we think is more worthwhile to be running?

Last, as we fight, and as we run, are we keeping the faith? Someone defined true spiritual success as doing the best you can, with what you have, where you are. This means we stand our post, a post chosen for us by Him, not us. A post that may find us on the backside of the desert, lacking every resource but One, Himself. Do we keep the faith there by being faithful. Even if that desert doesn't transform into a garden, will we keep the faith? As we run the race, and fight the fight? Not for the prize of the world's and even the church's applause, but for the approval and joy of the One who sits on the throne and watches us run. All the while running with us.

Paul wrote his words from a jail cell. A jail cell is a far cry from our idea of the victory circle. Yet for Paul, that's exactly what it was. Paul lived in the victory circle, through shipwrecks, beatings, and every degree of opposition. And he would die there. How about you and me? He fought the good fight, ran the race, kept the faith. Will we have done the same? Are we doing the same right now?

Blessings,
Pastor O